1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document management system configured to manage a paper medium and electronic data thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system in which information reading and writing is carried out contactlessly between an RFID tag and a reader/writer as reading device or writing device has been put into practical use in various fields. There is a prior art reference that applies this RFID system to a document management system.
The document management system as contents management system of this prior art reference obtains image data as contents information made into electronic data by optically reading a paper medium as display medium with optical reading device as image reading portion, reads out tag identification information as identification information via radio communication from an RFID tag circuit element as RFID tag provided in advance in the paper medium, and manages the paper medium by associating the image data with the tag identification information.
In the document management system of the above prior art reference, if document contents are to be viewed, the contents of the document can be viewed at any time by obtaining image data of the target document. On the other hand, in a case of tax audit, for example, not the electronic data but a paper medium itself might be needed. In such a case, since the image data made into electronic data and the tag identification information are managed in association with each other in the above system, a location of the paper medium can be searched by specifying an RFID tag circuit element to be searched with the tag identification information and carrying out information reading of the RFID tag circuit element by a reader via radio communication.
At this time in the document management system of the above prior art reference, only the tag identification information is stored in the RFID tag circuit element provided in advance in the paper medium, and it was not possible to store additional information of the document type, paper size, page number, for example of the paper medium in the RFID tag circuit element so that the additional information is used when the above search is made, which leaves room for improvement of convenience in a search work. Further, since the RFID tag circuit element is provided in the paper medium in advance, it is not possible to make display such as printing of information relating to the paper medium on the surface of the RFID tag circuit element or tag medium including the RFID tag circuit element, which also leaves room for improvement of convenience in the above search. Moreover, since the RFID tag circuit element is provided in the paper medium in advance, an attachment location such as front face or back face, upper end or lower end of the RFID tag circuit element in the paper medium can not be selected freely, which might lower communicability of radio communication in the above search depending on a storage mode of the paper medium.
As described above, in the document management system of the prior art reference, there is still room for improvement in terms of convenience and efficiency of the search for the paper medium itself, and efficient document management can not necessarily be made.